6 Tips to Rock Out Your Email Marketing

Email marketing is affordable, personal, actionable and measurable, making it a great way to communicate with your contacts. If you aren’t using email as part of your marketing mix you are missing out. Good news… it’s never too late to get started.

Here are 6 Tips to Rock Out Your Email Marketing

1. Use a reputable deployment system

If you are using Outlook or Gmail to deploy mass emails you are not only running the risk of getting blacklisted on your email server, you are also likely in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act. CAN-SPAM outlines the legal requirements for proper email marketing. You should familiarize yourself with these best practices and by using a third-party deployment system you will be in compliance with many of the Act’s requirements.

Many deployment systems are free or low cost. I have been very happy with MailChimp. Their free service includes access to a great deal of capability. Also, a deployment system will offer you html templates along with an easy to use interface for managing your lists and campaigns. Plus you will gain analytics and reporting, so you can measure and track success.

2. Get a hard opt-in

There is nothing worse than going to a networking event and exchanging cards with a bunch of great people only to find out that all they’ve done is add you to their email newsletter. Consider sending out a quick personal note or even using an automated email template to ask a person if they want to be added first. Allow them to say no, respect that answer and better still allow them to opt in and customize the type of emails they wish to receive (deals, news, events, etc.)

3. Content should be relevant

Consider who your audience is and segment accordingly. At a minimum customers, prospects, and networking contacts should be segmented, but maybe customers, for example, could be broken down further. Consider a mortgage broker, she may breakout her customers into buyers versus refinancers. How can a message be altered to speak to each of these audiences? Before sending any email think about each persona and create a variation of the campaign to speak to each type. In all instances, keep your content simple and concise. Always challenge yourself to say the same thing in less words.

4. Use personalization

There are lots of opportunities to use personalization in an email. First name is the most obvious, use it in the body of the email or in the subject line. Remember that your open rate is based on the from name and the subject line, so having a strong subject makes a huge difference. Consider personalizing with location also. Would it catch your attention if the subject line referenced your neighborhood? An example for a realtor might be “HOT properties in Edgewater”. In the case of an event planner how about personalizing with birth date or anniversary month. Think about what makes sense for your industry, and incorporate it into your email marketing.

5. Know your analytics

The only way you will improve your email marketing is through understanding your analytics. You should know your open rate and click rate as well as bounces and unsubscribes. Don’t obsess over them, but track trends and test slight variations to try to encourage improvement.

6. Grow your list

Your list is not a static thing. It’s important to create programs to continue to grow your email marketing. Work towards moving your social media following over to email, because while social media can be a great, today’s algorithms don’t always get you the visibility you would with email.

Here is a list of ideas of ideas of how you can grow your list:

Your customers
Website newsletter sign ups
Add a website pop-up with incentive
Engage on social media
Sign-up sheet in store
Event attendees
Network and collect cards
Create a VIP or birthday club
Use direct mail
Give-away or contest
Promote with the Chamber of Commerce
Call to action on your blog
Collaborate with a neighboring or power partner business
Offer email only deals
Include personal email contacts
Create a referral program
Use POS system to collect emails
Create a loyalty program
Offer free content like a pdf. download
Get creative! What ideas can you think of?

As well as being a CoFounder of Women Belong Kate Alpert is a marketing professional with a background in branding, design, web development, video production, social media management and of course, email marketing.

Kate has upcoming talks on the topic Email Marketing.